A Critique of Hungryalism by Titas De Sarkar

It shouldn’t surprise the readers that the Hungryalists 
indulged in a ‘narcissistic spirit’ right from the second paragraph 
of the first Bulletin they published, in the early sixties. 
The very beginning of their existence was a self-declared one. 
It was possibly the only way that they could have come into their own. 
This was a backlash against the marginalised status 
of these poets in the society, in the cultural field. 
Their lives were the result of the tumultuous decades 
post the Partition of Bengal in 1947, when there was intense displacement 
from both the sides of the border, an acute shortage of space, 
along with a consistent rise in unemployment. 
The founder members, finding no representation of these 
daily challenges in the literary texts, took it upon themselves 
to bring the written language up-to-date as it were, 
in both its form and content. It came out as a response 
to a literary scene that was hijacked by middle-class ethics, 
codes, and so-called pretensions. The status-quo was sought 
to be maintained because of the degradation of such a lifestyle 
in the real world, where joint families were replaced by 
nuclear ones on one hand, and women were going out and 
finding their feet in the job market like never before – 
more often than not against the wishes of their husbands and fathers. 
Regular political rallies were organised against government 
inaction and inefficiency as more and more people were 
becoming disillusioned with the promises of the newly formed nation-state. 
It was a time when the middle class found their cultural capital to be 
vastly at odds with their unenviable economic standing. 
It is out of such an asynchronous existence, that the politics of 
the Hungry poets emerged. It was not only self-representational, 
but without the Self, the very movement had neither 
an origin nor a justification. What could it be, after all, 
if not being narcissistic?

A Bulletin for your thought

Representing the oppressed Self, however, h
as the tendency of going overboard. A few (seven, to be specific) 
of the Hungry Bulletins are going to be examined here 
to see if that was indeed the case, and if so, how were they 
crossing such boundaries. The fact that these specific bulletins 
were part of the anthology on the Hungry Generation that 
was published only in 2015 is itself an indication of how they 
want to project themselves, after all these years. 
A manifesto is in itself a propaganda of one’s own ideas 
about the world, its politics and the ideology held dear by the author, 
regarding contemporary problems and the ways to counter them. 
Four Hungry manifesto out of the seven that are under
 consideration were written in a point-by-point structure, 
presenting the agenda in the simplest of formats. 
The reason for mentioning this is to point out that the poets 
resorted to different tactics for letting their principles 
known to the masses, rather than letting their writing speak for itself. 
Does this betray their lack of confidence in the readers, 
who they might have thought to be so used to the 
conventional reading structures and ways of thinking, 
that they would be unable to grasp the politics behind 
the ‘obscenities’ that these young poets were introducing 
to the pages of their magazines? In any case, they were letting know 
of their reasons and approaches to dissent through art in a way 
which was all too familiar in the political domain, but not very much 
so in the artistic circles. And that was arguably another aspect 
of this Hungry movement – if the personal is political, 
they were bringing to the Bengali literature, that intimate 
aspect of politics of the educated middle class youth with 
his sexual desires, political anxieties, conflicts of the everyday, 
and ways of articulation, which was not addressed till then.

Manifesto of the marginalised 
Let us briefly look into the contents of the manifesto. 
The first bulletin credits Malay Roychoudhury as the ‘creator’, 
Shakti Chattopadhyay as the ‘leader’, with Debi Roy editing and 
Haradhan Dhara publishing it. Interestingly, the manifesto is in English. 
The poets prefer poetry to resemble a ‘holocaust’ rather than 
‘a civilizing manoeuvre’. They are trying to overcome the
 ‘artificial muddle’ which is devoid of the ‘scream of desperation’. 
To them, most of the poems of that time were all too glamorous, 
logical, and ‘unsexed’, written by individuals, 
who were more concerned with self-preservation than self-doubt.

About the objectives of the Hungry movement, 
it is stated in the tenth bulletin that they would
 put words to make silence (or, what was silenced till then) speak. 
They dream of going back to the pre-civilizational chaos and start 
a new world, through their creations. 
This will be done by coming to terms with every sense-perception 
which the author possesses, going beyond the world of comprehension. 
When this leads to the self-discovery of the skeptic and vulnerable poet, 
he’ll cease to create anymore.

Another bulletin, simply titled as ‘The Manifesto of the Hungry Movement’, 
speaks in first person and with itself about how to write poetry. 
The poet wishes to inspect himself and every aspect of his lived experience, 
and question those before accepting them or otherwise. 
The poems should betray precisely those moments when 
he was most vulnerable, so as to get an insight into his inner self. 
About the linguistic signs of poetry, the poet wishes to 
do away with the rhyming scheme and adopt such colloquial 
words which would immediately resound with the readers. 
The commonsensical placing of one word after the other would 
be replaced to break the existing politics behind language, 
which is ‘meaningful’, even if that leads to ‘meaninglessness’ 
in their creations, to begin with.

In bulletin number fifteen, declared as 
the ‘Political Manifesto of the Hungry Movement’, 
the authors claim that they would liberate the very soul of the masses 
from politics, because the latter is only self-serving, 
irresponsible and ultimately, a fraud. No respect will be shown 
to a politician of any colour. They will transform the very 
notion of political faith.

Bulletin numbered sixty-five is the one related to 
the Hungryalist’s notion of religion. 
The first point only has two words in Bengali – 
‘God is garbage’. According to them, religion makes people 
lose their sense of reason; it is the institution which condones 
every sinful act like ‘murder, rape, suicide, addiction’, 
and leads to ‘insanity’ and ‘sleeplessness’. 
Religion is a tool to acquire the tangibles and intangibles 
of the world, and only the best of human beings could resist 
the temptation of mindlessly submitting themselves to it. 
It is a law unto itself, which has a parasitical existence. 
It prospers only in the hearts of the faithful. 
Religion is only self-glorifying.

The forty-eighth bulletin is interesting as it talks about 
the role of the painter in the society, written by two painters – 
Anil Karanjai and Karunanidhan Mukhopadhyay. 
In true Hungry spirit, they wanted to paint 
those aspects of people’s lives which aren’t highlighted 
due to their poor socio-economic condition. 
They rue the fact that many painters let go of this principle 
as their patrons belong to the elite class. 
Their objective would then be to come out of this easy co-existence 
and spread their creation to the masses, staying true to their ideologies. 
Hungry painters are free of materialistic concerns 
and they consider themselves to be the conscience of the society 
and ‘destroyer of evil’. To them, any pretension in art is unforgivable.

The last bulletin to be discussed here, titled ‘Hungry Generation’, 
encapsulates the meaning that poetry holds for them. 
Poems written by their contemporaries do not resemble 
life in any way, they regret. Moving beyond meaning-making, 
poems should try to explore the chaotic, what society considers as disorder. 
Poems sustain these authors despite the psychological and physical ‘hunger’ 
they suffer from. Disillusioned with ‘men, god, democracy and science’, 
poems have become their last resort. 
For them, poetry and existence have become synonymous. 
However, poetry is not the escape route from the world that has rejected them.
 Rather, poets could truly be liberated by giving into 
their savage spontaneity. Freedom from conventional form could 
only be found in the orgasmic outburst of emotions. 
It is therefore a call to a culture-war against high-brow art, 
which is consciously made aesthetically pleasurable, 
lyrically articulated, and pursued merely as a pastime – 
a frivolous exercise. In contrast, poems exist to satiate the soul of the Hungry.

Too Hungry to resist

The above claims betray certain anxieties of the Hungry activists. 
There was a constant desperation to prove that they were 
different from the rest, and that they were better. 
A possible reaction to the judgmental society, they countered it 
by examining their colleagues in turn and found them wanting, 
according to their set standards. However, bringing out manifesto 
and justifying their actions is also a way of seeking validation 
from the masses, a hope that they’ll be understood on some levels. 
Because misunderstood they were, and the readers often 
looked past the politics and the intellect behind the usage of words, 
which were summarily discounted as obscene and derogatory. 
Yet, they believed that those very people, who according to them 
were already structured by the State, societal conventions, 
and ritualistic behaviour, could be capable of empathy, 
and would be able to appreciate their project.

Publishing manifestoes also indicate an expectation 
of winning over a section of the society in a short span of time. 
Making their objectives clear would assist others to support their 
cause sooner than having a prolonged investigation into their 
writings and then arriving at an understanding about their work. 
The Hungryalists were so few in number, that reaching out to 
the readers in such a straightforward manner was probably 
a way to find like-minded souls.

The hyperbole which is noticed often in these manifesto 
is probably because of the huge vacuum that these poets were trying to fill, 
both in the literary as well as personal context. 
Taking on the entire society and its conventions is a monumental task. 
When that is taken up from a marginalised position, 
the articulation could cross the limits of what is humanly achievable, 
as has happened here. The over-ambitious politics was also due 
to the youthfulness of the authors, which has been referred to as a phase 
of high optimism, a time when the protagonists are old enough 
to form ideologies but young enough not to have all the responsibilities 
of an adult, which gives them that impetus to see their politics through.

An interesting possibility would have been to witness 
these artists doing what they did best – write or paint – 
without having to justify their positions, by publishing manifesto 
and such like. But herein lies the paradox: the reason for that justification 
– their poverty, lack of societal acceptance, and cultural representation 
– is the very reason why the Hungry movement had come into existence 
in the first place. If there was no need for any justification, 
then that would have meant that the society had already reconciled 
itself with their art and politics.

While the motive for coming out with manifesto is understandable, 
what remains unclear is the way of executing the claims that 
the movement had committed itself to. 
How were they actually going to overcome the ‘artificial muddle’? 
What are the kinds of introspection that would make the poet connect 
with his unconscious?  Why are his words outside the conspiracy 
of the structures after all, even if it breaks the known form? 
– all these issues require serious engagement. 
Merely putting it down on paper without a definite 
framework of execution only makes the words hollow. 
Making declarations about liberating the soul from politics 
sounds rather amateurish, if not downright problematic. 
One of the Hungry tactics was to consciously make exaggerated 
statements through their manifesto, poems or even certain activities 
like sending masks of animals to individuals holding 
important positions in the government, but such shock 
and awe effects are only momentary. 
A detailed discussion about themes such as uncontrolled flow of emotions 
or spontaneous writing could have given one a better understanding 
of their ideas vis-à-vis other poets of the world at that time. 
Moreover, any reader of the Bengali language would know 
that quite often the words that the manifesto had were a far cry 
from the commonly spoken language of the masses. 
Such a convoluted way of writing only distanced them from others.

The manifestoes show that the Hungryalists did have 
the intent of trying to transform the literary scene and in the process, 
the society. They did possess a few progressive ideas, 
and their hearts were in the right place when they propounded 
a culture for the masses, free from the trappings of elite cultural tropes. 
However, the feeling one gets from the bulletins is that 
they had hit above their weight. They did so knowingly, 
but a spoonful of restraint, an ounce of elucidation of their 
propositions and a generous helping of a vision about their 
long-term prospects could have given more strength to their struggle 
and made it more popular. Or maybe, 
they just wanted to remain Hungry forever.

Bio:

Titas De Sarkar is currently pursuing his Doctoral 
research from Centre for Historical Studies, 
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is working on 
Youth Cultures and Post-Colonial Politics

Influence of Hungryalist movement on Bangladeshi poet Belal Chowdhury by Dr. Rashid Askari

Cast a cold eye/ On life on death/ Horseman, pass by/,” wrote W. B. Yeats in his own

epitaph. The inscribed words are the last bit of his poem Under Ben Bulben, which later became and is still becoming the philosophy of life of many of his devotees. I don’t know if the Irish poet was or not an influence on our recently deceased poet Belal Chowdhury (1938-2018). However, I am, pretty sure that the latter was the strong silent type and did never make a parade of his literary talent, remained unsung and passed away rather silently. He was a self-proclaimed solitary man as evidenced by his own verses that occur in his poem ‘Self identity’, “… suddenly did I realise: in this twentieth century I’m a helpless/A solitary man.”

 

A deep sense of alienation is manifest in the good poet’s self-realisation which is, however, a key characteristic of the modern generation poets.  Poet Belal Chowdhury had a fairly good innings of 80 overs (1938-2018). Gravitating to Calcutta in the early 1960s, he took to writing poetry, essays and research articles in close association with the great Kolkata literary masters like Shakti Chattopadhyay, Sunil Gangopadhyay and Kamal Kumar Majumdar.

 

Belal Chowdhury had established a close rapport with the 1960s Kolkata-based writers of the generation called ‘Hungry Generation’, also known as the ‘Hungryalist Quartet’ led by Shakti Chattopadhyay, Malay Roy Choudhury, Samir Roychoudhury and Debi Roy alias Haradhon Dhara. Believers in, sort of,  an avant garde literaty and cultural movement, the Hungryalists stood against the contemporary clichéd ideas and preconceived colonial canons of literary pursuits and proposed a new kind of style especially in the language and idiom of their poetry. This counter discourse initiated by the poets and painters of the Hungry Generation can be considered as the herald of the postcolonial awakening in the subcontinent.

 

Poet Belal Chowdhury was left with a mixed feeling about the Hungryalist Generation. Although he did not directly support that newfangled movement and considered it or the likes somewhat unsuitable for Bangladeshi poetry, he was always of the opinion that there should be change and reform in Bengali poetry especially in its form and language.

 

However, it can be quite arguably presumed that the Hungryalist Movement had a sneaking influence on Poet Belal Chowdhury and he measured the popularity of Shakti Chattopadhyay as an outcome of the movement.  However, it is evident that Kolkata in the 1960s—-the bustling metropolis, the bibliophile’s paradise – College Street, the lively rendezvous-Coffee House, the tranquillity of the Ceoratola Crematorium, the flat expanses of Gorer Math and, above all, the enjoyable company of friends like Shakti Chattopadhyay and Sunil Gangopadhyay have exerted a tremendous influence on the subconscious of Poet Belal Chowdhury. Whatever it is, there is no denying the fact that his literary sojourn in Kolkata provided a solid foundation for his poetic career that extended over the rest of his life. On his return to Bangladesh in 1974, he began writing poetry in a trendsetting style to suit it to the spirit of the newborn country. He had always been working as an activist of the progressive cultural movements to ward off the social and cultural evils.

 

Belal Chowdhury’s literary works number more than 50 and include poetry, essays, translation, editing and juvenile literature. Ballal Sen, Mayur  Bahan, Sabuktagin were his pen names. Among his poems, Nishad Pradeshe, Atmaprakriti, Sthir Jibon o Nisharga, Jolbishuber Purnima, Shelai Kora Chhaya, Kobitar Komolbone, Battrish Number, Bidaiyee Chumuk are worthy of note. Alongside writing poetry, he translated the works of great masters like Jorge Luis Borges, Pablo Neruda, Dylan Thomas, Octavio Paz. Poet Belal Chowdhury was an original poet par excellence. He was a complete individualistic in his writing. He tried to stand out of the literary crowd of his country. The craving for popularity never prompted him to write trash to titillate the taste of the teeming folks. He never tried to win praises either from the readers or the critics by writing so-called love or rebellion poems or catchy slogan-ridden verses like many of his generation.

 

Belal Chowdhury was both a socialist and a nationalist in the good sense of the terms. He had a tremendous love and passion for his motherland, our dearly bought Bangladesh. He was a devotee of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Bengali nationalism. That Bangabandhu’s residence 32 Dhanmondi is the centre which guided the course of the history of Bangladesh Independence finds a beautiful expression in his poem titled ‘Number 32’. To quote: “To find out the history of the Bengali and Bangladesh/ You’ve to go to Number 32/To see the saga of  glories of Bangladesh and the Bengali / You’ve to go to Number 32/ To know the foundation history of Bangladesh and the Bengali you’ve to turn page at 32/  Also to see the sign of stigma of Bangladesh and the Bengali you’ve to go to Number 32;/ 32 is not only a mere house number, nor a mere symbolic number/ The house isn’t limited only to the numerical entity/…”.

 

Belal Chowdhury’s Number 32 is the history of a nation distilled into a few verses. It expresses the poet’s social, political and history consciousness and his allegiance to his homeland. If you want to dig deep into the hard facts about the social and cultural existence of Bangladesh, you can source them from Belal Chowdhury’s writing. He tried to release his patriotic and humanitarian feelings through his writing which at the end of the day turns into sort of a cathartic experience. Poet Belal Chowdhury is not a much talked about poet in the Bengali language, nor is he a popular one in the prevalent sense of the term and hence his poetry too has not been duly appreciated/explored.

Given the worth of his writing, especially his poetry, reading leading to rereading has become a must for both literature and criticism professionals and amateurs. His poetry would sure hint at newer aspects of our socio-political and cultural heritage of Bangladesh and may lead us to the pursuit of a postcolonial identity, which is a pressing need of time. The poet’s bohemian existence, his checkered past, his tumultuous Kolkata days, his profound sense of Bangladesh history and independence and the far-reaching secular vision manifest in his writing/poetry are rewarding subjects of   study for now and always.

 

Dr. Rashid Askari is a writer, fictionist, columnist and vice chancellor of Islamic University, Bangladesh. Email: rashidaskari65@gmail.com

 

Influence of Hungryalist Movement on Subimal Misra by V.Ramaswami

Influence of Hungryalist movement on Subimal Misra by V.Ramaswami

I believe Debesh Ray, the respected Bengali writer, had once said something to the effect that the impact of the Hungryalist movement in Bengali literature in the 1960s was akin to that of the subsequent Naxalite movement in the political sphere. Through their statue-breaking campaign, Naxalite youths desecrated and decapitated statues of national and cultural icons in order to express their rejection of everything hitherto held as “sacred”. The Hungryalists wanted to see the end of literature as commodity. They wanted writers to open their hearts, minds and senses so as to produce “raw” writing that was free of any garnishing for the commercial establishment, which breaks away from all the old values and tastes upheld by this establishment. They wished for an open expression of sexuality and eroticism in order to destroy the prevailing morality of the literary establishment. Subimal Misra began writing in the late ’60s, and was thus roughly of the Hungryalist generation, although he was not part of the movement. That provides the immediate backdrop. Bengali literature had already been rocked, and a new force of writing had emerged. The space for a writer like him had been created.
( Punch magazine )

The issue of NOW edited by poet Samar Sen in which Hungryalist movement was discussed

Letter from Carl Weissner, editor of Klactoveedsedsteen to Hungryalists during the movement.

                                                                            

Bohemian Hungry Generation Poets of Bengal by Abhijit Pal

                                         

It would be worthwhile to warn readers that the Bohemianism of the  Bengali Hungry Generation poets of India have nothing to do with the French poets or the Beats who were called Bohemian. The Hungry Generation poets, writers and artists were the first anti-establishment and counter-cultural activists in Post-colonial West Bengal, but they all came from very poor families. The artistic and literary pursuits of these Bengali young men did not have the voluntary poverty as an engine for their adventures and wanderer life. They were not vagabonds like those of the European variety.Right from the inception of the movement, they opposed the prevailing power structure, the dominant Bengali ruling class and their customs and institutions, institutional authority.

Abani Dhar was a seaman trainee ( Khalasi ) and sold coal on the streets of Kolkata after his mother told him to leave the seaman's job and return home. He was from a Vaishnava family and his father abandoned him and his mother when he was a boy and left home with a Vaishnavite woman. His father had once come back home to reconcile when Abani Dhar was grown up, but Abani Dhar told him to leave immediately.

Debi Ray lived in a Howrah slum, in a single room with only one toilet for all twenty residents,  and before he entered school worked as an errand boy for a road side tea shop ; his mother collected pumpkin seeds to be dried and sold in the market. It was this hut of Debi Roy which functioned as collection centre of manuscripts to be published in Hungry Generation bulletins. The Hungry Generation did not have an editorial office, headquarter, highcommand or polit bureau to run the show. Each and every member was free to publish his one page bulletin if he was in a position to collect money for publication. However, the main funding was done by the two Roychoudhury brothers, Samir and Malay.

Malay Roychoudhury came from a criminal locality of Patna named Imlitala, where most of the residents belonged to lower castes and were called untouchables at that time; his father had to feed twenty persons of the extended family with his meagre income from photography business. Most of the inhabitants of the Imlitala locality indulged in dacioty, thievery, pick-pocketting, selling illegal items etc. Malay was introduced to palm toddy drinking and pig-meat eating in this locality. 

One of Malay's cousin brothers, Arun Roychoudhury, he came to know when Arun died in his teens, of slow-poisoning, inadvertantly by Arun's foster mother, ie. Malay's aunt, as she wanted to keep control on Arun, was purchased from a prostitute when Arun was few month's old.

Subimal Basak's father had to commit suicide drinking nitric acid as he was in deep debt leaving his widow and children to fend for themselves. Subimal had to do menial work to eke out a living.

Subhash Ghose, Saileshwar Ghose, Basudeb Dasgupta, Pradip Choudhuri, Subo Acharya all came from uprooted refugee families of East Pakistan. They were all first generation literate. Literature was their way of fighting with the unjust inhuman society.

Kolkata or Calcutta of 1960s were not a peaceful place for young poets in their twenties to come together with a purpose. There were political turmoil and refugees from East Pakistan had been arriving constantly in search of peace and shelter. These young boys were very much disturbed and formed a literary and cultural movement which had political overtones.

About thirty poets, writers and artists under the leadership of Malay Roychoudhury accidentally met each other and started a rebellion in post-colonial post-modern Bengali literature. Since they were from lower middle class or refugee background, they were not much bothered about their overnight roof and regular food or for that matter regular bath and change of clothes. However, after the Kolkata Police filed FIR in September 1964 against eleven Hungry Generation members, many left the movement in a huff. 

From the letter of Allen Ginsberg to Abu Sayeed Ayyub, it is now known that Police had interrogated twenty six poets and writers, and ultimately filed a case against only Malay Roychoudhury for his poem "Stark Electric Jesus". Malay was jailed for a month for this poem but the Kolkata High Court exonerated him after a protracted and expensive legal battle. Octavio Paz had met Malay at Patna and Ernesto Cardenal had met him at Mumbai.

From the memoirs of Hungry Generation writers we learn that some of them continued with the same shirt and trousers for months together without changing them as they did not have alternative set of dresses. They visited railway stations, especially Sealdah station, and used the toilets of trains which had just arrived or which was yet to start.

During the night they stayed at a Marwari businessman's office at Kolkata's business district Burrah Bazar, to sleep on the floor mattress which were meant for the outstation customers of the businessman.

For food they had to pool their resources together and eat at the shady stinky restaurants called Pice Hotels, mainly at Shyambazar or at College Street Market where each item was served separately and was quite cheaper.

In the evening they would visit the infamous Country Liquor Den named Khalasitola frequented by seamen and poor labourers. Here they would celebrate the birthday of famous poets like Jibanananda Das or release their newly published collection of poems. They also arranged poetry readings at Howrah railway station, grave of poet Michael Madhusedan Dutt, the Nimtala Ghat of burning corpses etc which in a way was rudimentary stage of Poetry Slam. 

Since cannabis and hashish was not banned in 1960s, and there was a government shop just beside Khalasitola, they would purchase from the shop and walk back singing to wherever they could find their night shelter.

They generally published one-page bulletins due to paucity of funds and distributed them freely at Calcutta College Street Coffee House, Universities, newspaper offices and at College Street corners. Free distribution of their one-page writing was quite novel in Calcutta and senior writers and the press became aware of the presence of the Hungry Generation members. The press started criticizing them, published cartoons and this gave them popularity among readers. After their arrest, the then Police Commissioner of Kolkata Mr. P.K.Sen had commented that, "You people are engaged in serious literary activities or you are selling tooth powder through handbills ?"

Subimal Basak, the novelist of the bohemian group, who could draw sketches, drew explicit sketches with satirical humour undermining the deference shown by the middle class Bengali who were and are called "Bhadralok" towards those who were in power,  and got them xeroxed for distribution. Subimal Basak was the first writer who wrote complete narrative of his experimental  novel "Chhatamatha" in East Bengali dialect, which is now being followed by Bangladeshi writers. Subimal wrote poems as well in Bangladeshi dialect, now being followed by poets of Bangladesh after they became free of Pakistan's Urdu hegemony. Unfortunately, the Bangladeshi literary and religious establishment do not give due credit to Subimal Basak for his pioneering work.

Once in 1964 Subimal Basak and Malay Roychoudhury went to Champahati village in the invitation of a Baul named Ashok Fakir who lived with his wife in a hut. It was raining on that day. Ashok Fakir arranged for opium paste for them and after licking intermittently for a few hours they were quite high. All three of them went to the railway station and Subimal and Malay started dancing in a frenzy on the railway overbridge. The station master told Ashok Fakir to bring the duo down otherwise they could fall of the overbridge on the railway line. Both Subimal and Malay were completely drenched. Champahati at that time was a desolate village. The station master put the duo on a Kolkata train where on arrival both slept on the railway platform of Sealdah station and left in the morning after using the station toilet.

Ashok Fakir, got tagged to an American lady, left his Bengali wife and fled to USA with her. Ashok Fakir established an ashram in USA with his American paramour and had two children from her. Allen Ginsberg makes extensive reference of Ashok Fakir in his India Journals. Ashok Fakir had a plan to tag himself with Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky and get out of India. That did not succeed as Ginsberg was shadowed by the Indian police during his stay in India. Ginsberg left India alone leaving Peter Orlovsky behind.

Anil Karanjai and Karunanidhan Mukhopadhyay, who were painters prepared posters for the Hungry Generation and these were pasted on the staircase of the Calcutta College Street Coffee House and Calcutta University walls.Anil Karanjai also came from a post-partition refugee family of Rangpur in East Pakistan.

They, the Hungry Generation writers, poets and artists, would go out for what they called "happening" to villages and small towns just for enjoying themselves and rejuvenating their writing and drawing  skills. They visited Bishnupur, Kalai in Tripura, Benares, Patna, Chaibasa, Dumka, Daltonganj, Barh, Bakhtiarpur, Rajgir, Murshidabad, Siliguri, Balurghat and enjoyed liquor made of Mahua which was quite strong compared to rice liquor of Khalasitola. They thought that living continuously at Kolkata will spoil them ; they hated the prevailing literary atmosphere of Kolkata which Allen Ginsberg had termed as "bourgeois". 

The Hungry Generation writers had once distributed cheap paper masks wherein they had got printed the slogan "Take off Your Masks", which enraged senior writers who felt insulted. Once they also sent by post marriage invitation card wherein the slogan printed was "Fuck the Bastards of Gangshalik School of Poetry". So enraged were the academicians that Prof Abu Sayeed Ayyub complained to police and wrote a strong letter to Allen Ginsberg about the Hungry Generation poets, writers and artists who by then were being called Hungryalists. 

Once they went to Hindi poet Rajkamal Chaudhary's village Mahishi during the Chhinamasata deity's celebration at the local temple where people were offering buffaloes for slaughter. Poeple were drunk with rice liquor and so were the Hungryalists who had gone there as Rajkamal Chaudhary's guests. The whole night they were in drunk frenzy with buffalo blood splattered all over their body and ate cooked buffalo meat with the villagers. Rajkamal Chaudhary died young because of bohemian excesses. Rajkamal Chaudhary's famous poem "Muktiprasang" has a reference to Malay Roychoudhury. A similar reference of Malay had been made by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra in one of his poems.

Another Hungry Generation poet who died of excesses was Falguni Roy, who used be in a stoned state due to over indulgence in cannabis and hash and could publish only one book of poems before his death. Falguni Roy's manuscripts were collected by Subhash Ghosh and Subimal Basak which were added to the first edition of his book "Nashto Atmar Television". Hungry Generation poet Utpalkumar Basu termed the publication of Falguni Roy's collection of poems as end of modernism in Bengali literature.

1n 1965 Tridib Mitra, Malay Roychoudhury and Subimal Basak visited Subo Acharya's house at Bishnupur. They had a great time, as one of them has written in his memoir, smoked pot and after visiting the terracotta temples and conch shell cutting artisans, started walking aimlessly crossing several green paddy fields when they came to the shore of a river. They took out their shirt and pant, held them on their head and crossed the river completely naked, to the surprise of the nearby cultivators. After crossing the river, they sat down beneath a banyan tree and kept on smoking pot till evening, all four of them completely naked. They recited their poems from memory. The cultivators, including women, passed by, but nobody bothered them.

Around the years 1966-1967 Basudeb Dasgupta developed a sort of Henry Miller type life in Kolkata and started visiting hookers known to him and became close to one named Baby at the 5B number house at Sonagachhi. In a letter dated 6 December 1967 to Saileshwar Ghose he laments that Baby has shifted to number 10 hooker den and the 5B house has become desolate without her. He also talks about Abani Dhar who was with him one day and gave a little money to a hooker named Meera. Abani Dhar was a late entrant to the Hungry Generation movement. Before Dhar died, Malay Roychoudhury had arranged publication of his short story collection titled "One Shot" based on his experience of insults that he faced in his life. 

Abani Dhar was a trainee seaman ( khalasi ) and Basudeb Dasgupta encouraged him to write in his own illiterate diction. Basudeb Dasgupta was more attracted to Baby just as Abani Dhar was attracted to Meera. The third hooker in their life was Deepti. They were joined once in a while by Saileshwar Ghose after his wife died. Baby appears now and then in Saileshwar Ghose's poems. Unfortunately Saileshwar Ghose's wife, son-in-law and daughter died one by one and Shaileshwar Ghose also died on the operation table of a Government hospital, though he could have visited a private hospital where there were better facilities. Saileshwar was more interested in constructing his bungalow house than looking after his family members. 

Baby introduced herself to the Hungry Generation poets and writers when in 1965 David Garcia, an American Hippie poet visited Kolkata and wanted to fall in love with a Bengali girl. Since it was not possible to fall in love and make love to her within a week the Hungry Generation poets and writers took David to the famous hooker's den at Kolkata. When Baby saw a foreigner, she became interested and introduced herself, ordered for country liquor for all poets and writers who became drunk after a couple of bottles. David liked her after he slept with her for an hour. Since the poets and writers did not have sufficient money Saileshwar went after David has done his love making. This was the beginning of the affair of the Hungry Generation poets and writers with Baby, Deepti and Meera, three different types of women, different voices, different body structure. 

The bohemian Hungryalists Malay Roychoudhury, Sabimal Basak, Anil Karanjai, Karunanidhan Mukhopadhyay, Kanchan Kumar and Samir Roychoudhury went to Nepal without much money and stayed there for months together. They assembled at Patna residence of malay Roychoudhury, crossed the river Ganges in a boat, and from Sonepur took a train to Raxaul at Nepal border. Tridib Mitra had also arrived, but his girlfriend Alo Mitra, had a doubt about what the poets and writers were going to do at Kathmandu where cannabis, hash and Hippie women are available on call. Alo Mitra took back Tridib Mitra to Kolkata. 

The Hungryalists crossed the border in a rickshaw and took a bus to Kathmandu where Karunanidhan Mukhopadhyay used his contacts with some Hippies he knew at Benares and got a room in a big thatch Palace about hundred yards in length and breadth with hundreds of one room tenements on three floors of the wooden building at an area named Thamel in Kathmandu town.They rented a single room. For bed they were provided hay stacks on which a cotton cover was spread. Kathmandu at that time was flooded with Hippie boys and girls and the building the Hungryalists stayed in were jam packed with them, American, European and even Japanese. Rent was quite cheap. Just one rupee per month per head. When the Nepal Academy of literature came to know about the arrival of the Hungry Generation writers, poets and artists, they deputed the Deputy Secretary Mr. Basu Shasi to arrange for their daily food and sight seeing as well as poetry reading at various towns in Nepal.

Hash was very cheap at Kathmandu at that time. The Hungryalists would go out in the evening in groups or alone, find a temple where old men in a circle were smoking. The Hungryalist would sit beside them as a part of the circle  and get his turn to smoke, get high, and move on, or if stoned, go into the temple and wait till the effect was over. The evening gong of the temples were quite soothing, they have written.

The Hungryalists were sometimes invited for poetry readings at other centres in Nepal where arrangements were made for them to drink strong Nepali country liquor Raksi and buffalo meat cooked with hand by pressing the boneless pieces for a few hours with local masala, or deer meat pickle. Since Malay Roychoudhury's trial had become news in Nepali news papers, he had to recite his poem Stark Electric Jesus almost everywhere they went. The local newspapers published photographs of Subimal Basak, Malay Roychoudhury and Samir Roychoudhury. After the Hungryalists became known to the local poets Samir Roychoudhury collected poems from Nepali poets and brought out an anthology when he returned to India.In November 1964 TIME magazine had published the news of the arrests of Hungryalists with a group photo, which made them known to the Hippies and a few Hippie girls fell for these poets and writers. There was music, hash and love at the Thamel wooden Palace.

Karunanidhan Mukhopadhyay was able to convince the African-American owner of Max Galarie at Kathmandu to hold an exhibition of painting by himself and Anil Karanjai. It was a great success for Anil Karanjai as almost all his paintings were sold. On the last day of the exhibition the unsold paintings were heaped together and set on fire. The Hungryalists, Nepali poets and the Hippies who had gathered started singing and dancing around the fire. A couple of Hippies played guitar and flute. After the fire was extinguished Karunanidhan Mukhopadhyay gathered ashes on his palm and put black dot on everybody's forehead.

Karunanidhan Mukhopadhyay's father had abandoned him and his mother when Karunanidhan was a child and married a Burmese women. His father stayed in Burma whereas Karunanidhan returned to India with his mother and led a life of a street child, earning in whatever way he could to sustain his family. He did not learn painting at any school or academy like Anil Kranjai and learned the craft from Anil Karanjai. Karunanidhan got jobs of drawing book and magazine covers. When the Hippies started to arrive in Benares during the Vietnam war he became their guide in the city as he knew the city like the back of his palm. The Hippies were impressed and gave him expenses. A Hippie woman proposed to Karunanidhan that they select a place, build a hut and live there like Adam and Eve. The lady and Karuna lived like Adam and Eve, completely naked on the other side of Ganges river where nobody lived. Karuna would cross the river in a boat which the lady had hired and make purchases for a fortnight and go back to his lady love. Malay Roychoudhury has written that he was quite embarrassed to find them naked and dirty when Anil Karanjai took him to the couple's hutment. The couple had given up taking bath and combing hair since they settled on the shore. 

Based on his experience at Kathmandu and Benares with cannabis, hash, LSD and Hippie women Malay Roychoudhury has written an experimental fiction titled "Arup Tomar Entokanta" in which explicit sexual encounters are woven into philosophical discourse. The novel had shocked the readers when it appeared for its counter cultural and anti-establishment approach in a sexually path breaking prose. 

In 1964 Subimal Basak and Malay Roychoudhury visited Behrampore in Murshidabad district to get their bulletins and magazines printed at a press known to Samir Roychoudhury. They had to arrange with this press as the Calcutta presses refused to accept their manuscripts due to threats from other groups, especially the "Krittibas" group led by Sunil Gangopadhyay. 

After handing over the manuscripts to the press Subimal Basak wanted to visit  his maternal aunt and maternal grandmother at the village Khagra. They took a night train which was empty at that time, though now it would be impossible to get a seat in any train. The granny treated them well with good food and fish preparations. In the night Subimal Basak and Malay Roychoudhury slept on a bed made for them on the floor with mosquito net. In the morning they found a venomous snake with hood on the roof of the net, They had the bundle of Hungry Generation bulletin with them and with that bundle threw away the snake out of the net roof. Their shouts had attracted Subimal Basak's aunt and granny. They saw the snake slither into a hole beneath a tree. What the granny did was quite surprising. She took a pot of sugar and made a trail thereof from the den of red ants to the tree under which the snake had taken refuge. By afternoon it was found that the ants had almost eaten up the snake which had come out of its hole and was writhing in pain. It was just a depiction of what the Hungry Generation writers were trying to tell the Bengali middle class society, that Cultural snake has to be lured with sweetened morsels of prose and poetry and then destroyed.

Short story writer Basudeb Dasgupta, who got inclined to Marxist shenanigans of the ruling left was later disillusioned and presented his case in his novel "Kheladhula". Malay Roychoudhury had already warned him that most of the leaders of the Communist Party had demanded bifurcation of Bengal on religious basis and when the partition came, they were the first to leave East Pakistan and flee to India leaving the lower "Namahshudra" strata of Bengali society trapped in Fundamentalist nightmare. Basudeb Dasgupta gave up writing thereafter and became a regular to the three hookers named Baby, Deepti and Meera. Pradip Choudhuri once said that Basudeb Dasgupta feels defeated and has become a pervert.

Subo Acharya, was unable to bear the burden of bohemian life. Though he went to Samir Roychoudhury's Dumka house in Bihar for a change, he ultimately sought refuge in religion and became a disciple of Anukul Thakur. He did not publish any poetry collection though he wrote poems for Subhash Ghose's magazine "Khudharto" and Pradip Chopudhuri's "PHoooo."

Pradip Choudhuri had gathered some poets in Tripura and wanted to spread the Hungry Generation movement to the state. However, after Arun Banik, one of the aspirant member was murdered by political goons his efforts petered away and he concentrated on French poetry of the time and visited France, Canada, UK and America for poetry reading and talks at various Universities on Bengali Poetry. Pradip Choudhuri's poem was staged as a ballet in Paris.

Pradip Choudhuri was sent for school and college education, by his father to R.N.Tagore's Visva Bharati University from which he was rusticated because of his explicit poems in which he named a few of his female class mates. He later studied English at Jadavpur University and taught at a private school till retirement. 

In North Bengal Alok Kumar Goswami and Raja Sarkar had started a Hungry Generation magazine named "Concentration Camp". Thie efforts were brought to naught by Shaileswar Ghose who thought that his importance will dwindle because of Goswami and Sarkar. The group got dismantled at the beginning itself. However, another poet named Arunesh Ghosh of the same group attracted the attention of Calcutta Literary Establishment but did not get the requisite importance for having joined the Hungry Generation movement. Arunesh Ghosh had spent most of his younger days in the vicinity of hookers den near his village and the women keep cropping into his poems very often. Arunesh Ghosh died in a pond while taking bath, though he was a good swimmer. It is conjectured that he committed suicide for having been neglected. 

Samir Roychoudhury not only toured the areas of sweet water fishermen, fishnet weavers and boat-makers to understand their life and living but also spent more than a year on fish trawlers in the Arabian sea. His bohemianism has been a completely different story. He lived the life of fishermen during his experience on sea trawlers which gave him insight into the forms of short stories he was going to write later. Ashok Tanti, the critique and novelist, has compared Samir Roychoudhury's contribution to Bengali literature with the famous fiction writer Manik Bandyopadhyay. 

Among all the Hungry Generation writers, poets and artists, it is Malay Roychoudhury, the founder of the movement, who gathered vast experience during his constant tour of entire country for about forty years. He based his novel "Ouras" on his experience in Abujhmarh jungle of Chhattisgarh where life of the Maoists intersect with the life and culture of the tribal people. Malay Roychoudhury toured West Bengal and Bihar and wrote his novel "Naamgandho" on the plight of poor potato growers and the politics of ruling parties and castes in controlling Cold Storage and off-season potato business. He wrote the novel "Nakhadanto" on the plight of jute farmers and the politics of jute mill owners in connivance with the ruling political class and their business interests. Most of the jute mills are being closed one by one so that the land may be used by the builder-promoter lobby. For writing "Nakhadanto"  and "Naamgandho" Malay Roychoudhury did extensive research on the subjects and visited hundreds of farmer families and several party offices in the guise of an Urdu-Hindi speaking reporter ; he had to grow and maintain beards and moustache and named himself  Choudhary Sahib. His post-modern novel "Arup Tomar Entokanta" reflects the anti-establishment  bohemian lifestyle of the Hungry Generation writers, poets and artists of 1960s.

There are heaps of misinformation garbage being spilled out even after so many decades. Take the case of the book "The Blue Hand" written by Deborah Baker on Allen Ginsberg's life in India. Mrs Baker had no need to bring in the Hungry Generation in her book, and even if she did so she should have interviewed the members of the movement who were available at Kolkata. Instead thereof, she contacted Tarapada Roy, a member of pro-establishment "Krittibas" group for information about the Hungry Generation movement. Everyone in Kolkata knew that Tarapada Roy was the nephew of the Deputy Commissioner of Police of Kolkata Detective Department who was in charge of filing cases and issuing arrest warrants against eleven Hungry Generation writers and poets in 1964. Mr Baker has completely distorted history and denigrated the Hungry Generation movement in her book. She talks about Shakti Chattopadhyay being identified by Bonnie Crown of Asia Society for the scholarship for visit to USA, but did not explain how Sunil Gangopadhyay maneuvered everything and went himself in place of Shakti Chaatopadhyay.

The pro-establishment writers are still active against the Hungry Generation movement. In the Durga Puja issue 2016 of "Kabisammelan" poetry magazine, reporter Gautam Ghosh Dastidar has written a lengthy article demeaning the contribution of the movement, on the same lines as the newspapers Ananda Bazar Patrika, Jugantar, Darpan, Jalsa, Amrita, Chaturanga did in the 1960s, despite the facts that Ph D and M Phill dissertations on the movement have been published. A pro-establishment guy named Sabyasachi Sen continually harps against the movement in whichever magazine he is asked to contribute.

( Information for this article collected from publications available at Little Magazine Library and Research Centre, 18 Tamer Lane, Kolkata )